Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently made headlines for calling perennial Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein “predatory” and “not serious.” AOC is right.
Giving voters more choices is a good thing for democracy. But third-party politics isn’t performance art. It’s hard work — which Stein is not doing. As AOC observed: “[When] all you do is show up once every four years to speak to people who are justifiably pissed off, but you’re just showing up once every four years to do that, you’re not serious.”
To be clear: AOC was not critiquing third parties as a whole, or the idea that we need more choices in our democracy. In fact, AOC specifically cited the Working Families Party as an example of an effective third party. The organization I lead, MoveOn, supports their 365-day-a-year efforts to build power for a pro-voter, multi-party system. And I understand third parties’ power to activate voters hungry for alternatives: I myself volunteered for Ralph Nader in 2000, and that experience helped shape my lifelong commitment to people-first politics.
Register to vote: https://vote.gov/
That’s not what I am saying though.
If we want to actually change the DNC for the better, that means voting in their primaries and especially at the local level with a heavy preference (not seeking perfection) for truly leftist candidates.
The DNC needs to be taken over. Nagging will never do anything.
We’ve been trying that for decades, buddy. Dissatisfaction with the dems is not “seeking perfection”, “nagging”, or any other patronizing mischaracterization you wish to paint it as.
If you’ve been trying to take over the DNC for decades, how you’re doing that could use some work.
And your strategy of voting for them no matter what their policy is works very well, I suppose?
